


Gone

by Psilent (HereThereBeFic)



Category: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Genre: Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 22:04:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1086185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereThereBeFic/pseuds/Psilent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Taris. Mission is in the kind of pain Carth can remember all too clearly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone

The door to the starboard crew quarters wasn't locked.

It was, in fact, not even _shut_.

In the passageway, Carth faltered. He hadn't expected this. Had been _hoping_ for a barrier, if he was honest with himself. A clear sign that communication was not welcome - the same way someone might knock on the debt collector's door and hope they weren't home. 

Cowardice. He continued forward, stepping heavily for the noise and telling himself it was out of respect. No one told him to go away.

"Mission?"

She was sitting on the bed in the back corner of the room. Arms wrapped tight around her legs, knees pulled close against her chest, head-tails drooping over her shoulders. She wasn't crying.

Stilted and awkward and trying not to remember Dustil after a nightmare, he crossed the floor and stood a few feet from the bed. "Uh, hey."

"Hey." She didn't move. Didn't even look at him. "Big Z send you to check on me?"

"I asked him how you were doing. He said you needed more time."

"And you thought that meant company?"

"I can leave if you want."

She tightened her arms around herself and said nothing.

Carth crouched down so they were about at the same level, one hand on the floor. She followed the movement with her eyes, clearly unimpressed. He cleared his throat. "You wanna talk?"

She snorted. "Yeah, 'cause what I _really_ need is someone tellin' me how _horrible_ it is for a _kid_ to lose her home."

Well. Nothing he hadn't expected, at least vaguely. He didn't rise to the bait. "Hey. We had that fight already. I know you can look after yourself, as well as any adult."

Mission exhaled, shuddering and annoyed, and buried her face against her knees. "Then why're you here?"

_Hell if I know. This was a terrible idea._

Drumming his fingers on the floor, he sighed, and sat down properly. Getting through this without telling her the truth had never really been on the table. "Because I know how much it hurts."

There was a pause. Mission turned her head without lifting it, squinting at him with one glistening eye. "What do you mean?"

"How much do you know about Saul Karath? Or Lord Malak?"

She shrugged. "About as much as anyone, I guess."

"Heard of Telos IV?" 

"Yeah. ...Oh." She sat up, blinking tears out of her eyes and down her face and not seeming to notice. "That was your homeworld?"

It still hurt. Damn everything. Two years and the past tense still _hurt_.

He shut it away. It was easy enough - this conversation wasn't about him. Use his own experience to help Mission, without accessing all the feelings that came with reliving it. Sure. Easy.

Deep breath. "Yeah. I was already enlisted with the Republic. They sent us to help but we didn't... Well, you already know. Too little, too late." 

_Don't mention Morgana. Don't mention Dustil. She can't relate to that. Don't make her feel sorry for you. You're trying to help her._

"I was thirty-six," he said at the floor. "Thirty-six, with a paying job, and places to go, and years of combat experience, and I'd never been more scared, or hurt, or _lost_ in my life."

"...Yeah?" Slowly, Mission uncurled from herself, arms dropping to her sides, legs stretching out.

Carth nodded. "Oh, yeah. I was a _total_ mess. Don't know what I would have done if I hadn't had a job to go on with. Any minute I wasn't busy, all I could think about was people I knew who'd been down there. People who were dead now." The words came so fast and so empty, he was afraid he would say something awful and not even notice.

"People I didn't _know_ about - if they'd moved or not, or if I even wanted to try and track them down, instead of just believing they were okay and never having to find out they weren't." ...Like that.

Not that there was anything to say on the subject that _wasn't_ awful, really. He pressed on. "And there was that _fear_ \- just this deep, awful _terror_ that would never go away, because I just kept remembering over and over again that it was all - _gone_. Does that sound about right?"

For a moment, Mission just stared at him - jaw quivering, eyes swimming.

Then she curled right back up and sobbed into her knees. _Shit_. Fuck. Shit. No - wait - _okay_ \- maybe this was good.

He shot to his feet, reached a hand towards her, changed his mind and backed up and tripped himself into sitting back down. "Mission?"

"I can't _sleep_!" she wailed, gasping for breath. "I haven't _slept_ in two _days_! I keep - I keep - _remembering_ \- Gadon and, and Janice, and Zaerdra - and - and - ev- _everyone_ , I just - they're just _gone._ "

She was shaking so hard she was barely comprehensible. Carth made the tactical decision to finally get up and sit next to her, and she shoved herself across the respectful distance he'd left and clutched at him. "Everyone who - who ever t-teased me or helped me or f-fought me or yell - yelled at me or - or st-stood up for me an' Big Z, they're - _all_ \- they're _all dead_ , and I can't - I can't - I can't _get it_."

"I know," he murmured, wrapping a cautious arm around her.

"It's like I just - I _forget_ \- and then _remember_ \- every - every c-couple of _seconds_."

"I know."

"Wh-when - does it go - _away_."

He bit his tongue on the lie that jumped instantly to mind. Mission would know and she would hate it. Time alone didn't heal any wounds; it scabbed them over and let infection spread.

 _Kids get lied to because they don't need to know. Grown-ups get the truth so they can deal with it._ "It... doesn't, entirely. In my experience."

"Well that's j-just _great_ ," she hissed into his side.

He patted her arm uncertainly. _What am I doing._ "It does get _better_."

"I d-don't think it could get _worse_!"

"The people in the Undercity might have survived," he offered.

She gulped. "...Yeah. I guess."

"They're so far from the surface, I bet they don't even know what happened. I bet in a few years they'll be thriving in that Promised Land of theirs." 

Sniffling, she pulled away just far enough to glare up at him. "You sound really really fake right now."

He chuckled. "Focusing obnoxiously on the positives doesn't mean I don't believe in them."

"Sure, whatever," she mumbled.

"You're just not used to me being happy, or nice. Or anything but grouchy, probably."

"You're trying to make me laugh."

"Is it working?"

" _No_ ," she giggled.

Carth nodded solemnly. "I see."

"That didn't count," she snapped. "That was a nervous reaction."

"Mm-hm."

"I'm hysterical. People laugh when they're hysterical."

"Yep."

"You're still a mean old man."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm _thirty_ - _eight_."

"That's practically dead."

"Snot-nosed brat."

She didn't ask him to stay.

They insulted each other until she fell asleep.


End file.
